


The Night We Met

by polarised



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: AU - No Powers, AU - No storm, Alternate Universe, F/F, First Meetings, Fluff, Shared Dreams, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:13:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23987929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polarised/pseuds/polarised
Summary: When Max Caulfield finds herself lying in a pile of leaves at the Arcadia Bay lighthouse, the world around her behaving strangely, she has no idea she’s about to uncover a spiritual connection with a woman she’s never met before...
Relationships: Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price
Comments: 3
Kudos: 48





	The Night We Met

All I can feel is the soft scratchiness of _something_ against my cheek and the hard ground underneath me as my eyes flutter open slowly. Slowly, as my eyes readjust, an orange and green mess fills my vision. _Are those… leaves?_ Instantly, my eyes snap open and I fully register the mess of leaves and petals I’m lying in, and I let out a small yelp of surprise. _Shit… did I pass out? Was I drugged??_ Panicked thoughts run through my head, only amplified by the fact that the last thing I remember is sitting in Mr. Jefferson’s class and dozing off during yet another dull lecture. But that was in the middle of the day, and now the pile of foliage I’m lifting myself from is bathed in a warm orange light that could only come from the setting sun. Somehow, someway, I’m miles away from Blackwell, at the end of the day, and I have no idea how I got here. As I gingerly bring myself to a standing position and look at my surroundings, even more questions start bouncing around my skull.

Everything around me is frozen. A family of squirrels are stuck running to a bush they’ll never reach, birds overhead have stopped mid flight, there are even leaves suspended in the air that have fallen from trees. Along with time seemingly stopping around me, anything further than a few feet from where I’m standing is distorted, shimmering with a white glow and almost vibrating softly. Suddenly, I feel a relentless pounding in my head that brings me to my knees. I screw up my face in pain, breathing heavily as the pain starts to subside slightly. Still applying pressure to my temple with one hand, I struggle to my feet and start walking forward, black spots dotting the edges of my vision as I trudge towards the only landmark I can see: the familiar, bright white lighthouse a few yards up the hill. _So, unless I suddenly developed superpowers, this is definitely not real. But it also feels too real to be a dream…_ I think as I approach the base of the lighthouse, grimacing against the throbbing in my head. Just as I start to think the pain is going to pull me out of whatever I’m experiencing, it disappears suddenly, like there was never any pain in the first place. Slowly, I remove my hand from my temple, and I have to stop myself from crying out in shock.

A small butterfly with bright blue wings is resting in my hand, seemingly perfectly healthy and not crushed by the pressure I was applying to my forehead. As I stare at the butterfly, my head numb with confusion, it suddenly flaps its wings and removes itself from my palm. Still hopelessly confused, I watch as the butterfly flies towards the distorted, glowing bench ahead of me. I follow cautiously, the bench becoming more defined, more real, the closer I get, until I see the butterfly scuttering along the top of the bench. Slowly, I walk towards the butterfly, reaching a hand out to try and touch it.

“Uh, who the hell are you?” A woman’s voice asks suddenly, causing me to jump almost a foot into the air. After the initial shock wears off, I step back from the bench, finally taking my eyes off the butterfly and analysing the mysterious woman. Almost immediately, I feel my heart rate spike and my face glow red. _Oh, she’s… hot..._ She’s dressed in a white tank top that shows off a colourful tattoo that covers her right arm, locks of bright blue hair frame her bewildered, thin face, and I can almost feel her piercing blue eyes scanning my body. I stare at her for a second, my mouth hanging open, before I shake myself back to life, my tongue feeling like sandpaper against the roof of my mouth.

“M-Max, Max Caulfield,” I finally stutter, pulling my gaze away from the unknown woman, whose eyes are still boring into me. “Who are you?” I ask, trying my best to sound stronger than I really am.

“Chloe Price,” she answers shortly. “Do you know what the hell this is?” Chloe gestures around us, at the frozen fauna and the fuzzy, shimmering surroundings.

“I guess it’s a dream?” I say slowly, walking closer to the bench Chloe is sitting on. 

“Maybe, but if this is a dream, how are we talking?” Chloe asks, pinching the bridge of her nose with an exasperated sigh. “And why us? I mean, I don’t even know you!” She says incredulously, which actually sends a pang of hurt through my heart, despite it being the truth.

“Well, how do I know you’re really here? What if this is all just in my head and you don’t exist outside of my imagination?” I ask, starting to feel slightly silly as I realise I could just be talking to myself. After a moment of silent thought, Chloe stands up with a sigh and walks in front of me, which makes me step back a little.

“What if I tell you something about myself that nobody else knows? That _you_ couldn’t make up if you tried,” Chloe says, looking into my eyes. Even though it feels like her gaze has made my mind go completely blank, I nod slightly.

“Ok, so,” she sighs, screwing her eyes shut as she blushes softly. “When I was a kid, I had a cat named Bongo. And I used to be really into pirates and shit like that, so I would dress Bongo in an eyepatch and pretend that this tiny fucking cat was my evil pirate nemesis or something,” she says, her cheeks turning more and more red with every word. It takes all of my self control not to laugh at Chloe’s story, but I seemingly manage well enough that Chloe finally seems to loosen up. “That enough to convince you?” She asks, a somewhat nervous smile creeping onto her face.

“Well, it’s way more embarrassing than anything I could have come up with,” I reply with a smile, which makes her roll her eyes. “So I guess you are real. But how-” I start but Chloe holds up a hand, shaking her head.

“Oh no, Caulfield, you’re not getting away that easy. Your turn to tell me something,” she says sternly. I feel the blood drain from my face as her thin face splits into a somewhat sadistic grin. Without thinking, I start to fidget nervously, lowering my gaze to my shoes.

“Oh… well… um…” I splutter, incredibly conscious of my rapidly reddening cheeks and Chloe’s smokey eyes tracking my movements. “I-I bake cookies and drink tea with my best friend on the weekends, and we feed her bunny some of the cookies,” I finally blurt out hurriedly, which seems to take Chloe by surprise for a second. However, the grace period doesn’t laugh long as she lets out a short laugh and puts a hand on my shoulder. Her fingers feel strong but somehow delicate at the same time, and I have to consciously stop myself from shivering slightly at her touch.

“That’s really sad, but I respect it,” she says, the corners of her soft lips turned up in a small smile that makes my stomach start doing cartwheels. “We should probably _actually_ talk and figure out why we’re here, right?” She asks, nodding her head towards the bench that’s bathed in the last slivers of sunlight. I nod silently, which makes Chloe lift her somewhat calloused hand from my body. It takes all my willpower not to grab onto her hand and hold onto it just to feel her again, but I resist the temptation and almost tip-toe to the worn down bench. Almost as if she wants to show off, Chloe effortlessly hops over the back of the bench and plops herself down on the bench without a care in the world, flashing a smug smile at me that causes a mixture of frustration, admiration, and anxiety to bubble in the pit of my stomach. I gently set myself down on the bench and look out at the surreal landscape we’ve found ourselves in, digging my fingernails into my palm as I stare at the crashing waves, frozen in time and shimmering with an odd static effect. After a few seconds of silence, Chloe clears her throat quietly, snapping me out of my trance.

“So… who the hell _are_ you, Max Caulfield?” She asks, propping her elbow up on the back of the bench and leaning on her hand, staring at me with a small smile. My eyes flick from her face to the still grass at our feet as my mind suddenly goes completely blank. 

“I’m… uh…” I squeak, racking my brain for some kind of interesting fact about myself. Eventually, Chloe saves me with a small sigh.

“Didn’t realise it was a hard question. Alright, what do you _do_?” She asks somewhat impatiently. 

“I’m a photographer, I guess. Or at least I want to be one,” I reply quietly, my voice trailing off as I nervously drum on my leg with my fingers. Chloe cocks an eyebrow at this.

“Yeah, you give off that vibe,” she says, a teasing tone in her voice. I open my mouth to retort but she quickly talks over me. “It’s a good thing, don’t get your panties in a twist. I guess you go to Blackwell, then,” she says with a hint of bitterness coating her words. I sit up slightly, crossing my arms defiantly.

“Yeah, it’s a good school. They have one of the-”

“One of the best photography courses in the country, I know. I always hated the place, way too stuck up for me,” she says lazily. “But, whatever works for you, dude.” Finally, she takes her eyes off of me and looks off into the distance, and my eyes are drawn to the tattoo plastered on her arm. To me, it looks like a series of vines, with the tendrils going through various skulls and blooming flowers. Something about the design and the colours feels so specific to _her_ in my eyes, like she was somehow born with the ink already injected into her skin.

“What does it mean?” I blurt out suddenly, causing Chloe to look at me dumbfounded. “Your tattoo, I mean,” I say hurriedly, already feeling the blood rising to my cheeks. To my surprise, she closes her eyes and sighs sadly.

“It doesn’t mean much, to be honest. I kinda just got it as a ‘fuck you’ to my mom and step-dick. Rachel and I…” she starts, before quickly biting her tongue and shaking her head. A sympathetic sadness rises inside me, and I shift slightly closer to her on the bench.

“Who’s Rachel?” I ask gingerly. Chloe sighs heavily, sitting forward and pinching the bridge of her nose as I awkwardly hover my hand above her back, my heart racing. 

“It doesn’t matter. She’s no-one,” she says quietly after a minute of silence. The mixture of sadness and anger in each of her words tell me to drop the subject immediately. “What do you take photos of?” She asks, yet again saving me from another awkward silence. I make a mental note to ask her about whoever Rachel is later as I reach into my bag and rummage around for an example of my photography, finally pulling out a polaroid of a broken glass bottle that I saw at Blackwell earlier in the year. Before handing it to Chloe, I admire the photo a little, my chest swelling with a bit of pride as I looked at the way I captured the sunlight hitting the shattered glass and the pile of orange leaves the pieces of bottle were lying on top of. 

“I don’t really have a specific style, but I took this a few months ago,” I say, offering the polaroid to Chloe, who smiles even though her eyes still look sad and tired. 

“Damn, you haven’t even gone digital? Total hipster,” she teases as she reaches for the polaroid. When she grabs hold of the polaroid, our fingers brush against each other and my heart skips a beat. I feel my mouth go dry as I look up at Chloe, whose eyes are flicking from our barely touching fingertips to my own eyes. There’s something different in her eyes, something I haven’t seen in the brief time that we’ve been talking to each other. It’s an almost longing look, a warmth that’s a shocking change from the cold sadness I saw behind her eyes just a minute ago. My eyes flick down to her soft lips, slightly parted, and then to her slender fingers, just barely grazing those connected to my own shaking hand. I force myself to look back up and I feel my cheeks burn bright red as I realise that Chloe’s been watching my eyes the whole time, yet that soft, yearning look in her eyes remained. I swallow hard, desperately trying to think of something to say to break the weighty silence between us. Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, Chloe slowly draws her fingers away from mine, gently removing the polaroid from my grip. 

“Uh… this is… this is a good shot…” she mumbles, and for the first time, I think I hear some type of nervousness in her words, which makes my heart flutter. “My-uh-my dad took photos. He gave me his camera before… before he…” her voice trails off, and that swooping feeling in my heart is instantly shattered as I see that familiar sadness creep back into the depths of her eyes. Gingerly, I put my hand on her forearm, as if I can somehow transfer happiness through touch. To my surprise, she inhales sharply, and I see her cheeks take on a faint crimson tint. Yet again, my heart does a series of somersaults. We’re both silent for a moment, before she clears her throat. “I’ve never used the camera, it was never really my thing. I was more into art, music, shit like that,” she continues, almost forcing that toughness back into her voice. Somewhat reluctantly, I withdraw my hand, still feeling the cold softness of her skin on my fingertips.

“I’ve always loved photography. It’s therapeutic, I guess,” I say nervously, trying to think of something to make her feel better. “You can-um-keep that, if you want,” I stutter, which actually makes Chloe laugh.

“I appreciate it, I guess, but it’s not like I’ll _actually_ have it. Like in the real world, y’know?” She scoffs, pocketing the polaroid anyway. I nod sadly and look out at the sunset again, the realisation that the two of us aren’t actually sitting together suddenly washing over me. It all feels so real, it can’t just be a dream, but there’s also _no_ way that this is real life. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Chloe watching me nervously. Even though I’ve only known her for what feels like ten minutes, there’s something about Chloe that sets off fireworks in the pit of my stomach. Talking to her feels so natural, like I’ve known her for years, but the mystery of her is also exciting to me. An anxious feeling rises in my chest as I glance over at Chloe, at her face glowing in the light of the sunset and her vivid blue hair moving slightly in the breeze.

“Chloe,” I finally sigh, closing my eyes tightly. “What if I don’t-” Before I can finish the thought, all the air is suddenly drawn from my lungs as I feel Chloe place her hand on top of mine, her slender, worn fingers gripping the top of my hand lightly. As my heart rate skyrockets, I open my eyes and look at her, staring into her piercing blue eyes that are now full of a fiery determination. 

“No, don’t say that. We’ll see each other again. It’s like we’re…” she sighs, shaking her head. “We’re connected, Max, somehow. And I don’t know why, but we’ll figure it out,” she says valiantly. I can’t help but smile at this, but my smile quickly vanishes as I notice something over Chloe’s shoulder that almost leaves me speechless.

“What the…?” I mumble, as Chloe follows my gaze. All around us, snowflakes are falling gently, fluttering to the ground yet somehow avoiding us. Chloe, still gripping my hand, stands up, prompting me to join her on my feet.

“Isn’t it, like, April?” She asks incredulously, watching the tiny droplets of frozen water fluttering to the ground at our feet. I nod shakily, transfixed at the way the snow reflects the setting sun. “Maybe… it’s a sign…” she says quietly, her eyes flicking from her shoes to my eyes. Slowly, she raises her other hand and grips my upper arm lightly. Instinctively, I bite my lip and avert my eyes from her’s. Instead, I focus on the way her thumb is tracing miniature circles on the back of my hand, on the way her grip is tightening on my arm, on the way her lips are parting slightly, and how she’s leaning towards me, and I’m closing my eyes… and leaning towards her… I can feel her breath against mine...

Suddenly, it feels like the ground gives out from under me, my heart drops to the pit of my stomach as I feel that unfortunately familiar falling sensation. Desperately, I try to scream out for Chloe, but there’s no air left in my lungs. When I open my eyes she’s gone, everything is gone. I’m falling through a black abyss, falling deeper, falling deeper…

“MAX!” My eyes snap open at the sound of Mr. Jefferson’s pissed off voice. “Care to explain why you’re using my class as nap time?” I look around at my surroundings, at the massive windows covering the wall of the classroom that are letting in streams of soft afternoon sunlight. Outside, the world seems to have resumed, as squirrels dash from tree to tree and students outside socialise with each other. Everyone in the class is staring at me, Victoria can barely wipe the smug grin from her thin lips in time to feign annoyance. I hear Mr. Jefferson slap his own leg in frustration and my eyes dart over to him. Anger lingers behind his dark brown eyes, made more evident by the scowl coating his handsome face.

“Well?” He asks expectantly, but even if I had an answer for him, my throat has gone so dry that I can barely breathe, let alone apologise for something so mundane and idiotic. Thankfully, the bell that signifies the end of class rings out at that moment, and Mr. Jefferson sighs. “Saved by the bell. Remember to read Chapter 12 for next week’s test, guys!” He says, raising his voice so the other students can hear him over the scraping of chairs against the floor and chatter breaking out. “Max, a word, please?” He asks, lowering his voice as that quiet anger returns to his words. But I barely register what he’s saying at this point. I can still feel the ghost of Chloe’s touch, the traces her hardened fingers left on my arm and my hand. Despite undoubtedly being in trouble with Mr. Jefferson, a smile finds its way onto my lips as I remember how her fingers had tightened on my arm when she leaned towards me, her lips so close to my own… a shiver runs down my spine as I put my notebook into my bag, desperate for the night to take me back to that lighthouse. Back to Chloe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! This was a fun concept I wanted to explore, and I hope I did it justice. The last chapter of Overcoming Obstacles is coming next, and after I'm done with both these fics, I'm thinking of focusing on one-shots for a bit. Regardless, kudos, shares, comments, etc. are appreciated as always. 
> 
> Twitter: @arcadia_boi


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